For people with diabetes, regular testing of their blood glucose level can be an important part of diabetes management. For example, portable handheld medical diagnostic devices are often employed to measure concentrations of biologically significant components of bodily fluids, such as, for example, glucose concentration in blood. To test glucose with a glucose meter, a small sample of blood may be placed on a disposable test strip. The portable handheld glucose meter may include a strip port that receives the disposable test strip. The test strip may be coated with chemicals (glucose oxidase, dehydrogenase, or hexokinase) that combine with glucose in blood. The portable handheld glucose meter then measures concentration of glucose in the blood sample. The portable handheld glucose meter then displays the glucose concentration as a number (or glucose measurement value). As a result, the portable handheld medical diagnostic devices and their accessories may work together to measure the amount of glucose in blood and be used to monitor blood glucose in one's home, healthcare facility or other location, for example, by persons having diabetes or by a healthcare professional.
Health care professionals and patients are taught to look for abnormal glucose patterns related to medications, diet and activity and identify the causes and successful resolution of cases of hypoglycemia or extended hyperglycemia. To enable this process, patients may either manually or automatically (via a portable handheld glucose meter or alternative electronic device) record and track diabetes related information. These logs, taken over an extended period of time, allow patients and professionals alike to look back at and analyze glucose information. Traditionally, log books chronologically relate information to a time in the day by recording when the information were taken. This can allow for patients with routine and predictable habits to overlay information from multiple days and observe the variation in glucose levels around a routine event. For example, one may overlay a weeks worth of data taken between breakfast and two hours after breakfast to examine the role that meal plays on an individual.
While such practices allow for the study of routine habitual undertakings, it is ineffective for analyzing sporadic events that occur infrequently or irregularly. Overlaying measurement sets for repetitious time frames fails to account for events such as exercise, illness, stress, snacking, hypoglycemia or hyperglycemia that can arise at anytime and for any duration. Thus, it may be desirable to provide an alternative method of displaying diabetic information to account for irregular or infrequent events.